The best eSIM for New Zealand in 2026. Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad, Ubigi and Ringo Light for New Zealand, priced on the same day: two weeks unlimited for $20.99, a month for $39.99.
Prices read on 28 September 2026. Six travel eSIMs sell a New Zealand plan and get most of the traffic for this search. We priced all six on the same day, for a week around Auckland and Rotorua, two weeks in a campervan across both islands, and a month, and read the fine print on unlimited. Here is where each one wins.
Ringo Light: Cheapest unlimited for two weeks or a month. Unlimited data at full speed for 2 weeks at $20.99 or 30 days at $39.99, one payment each, nothing renews. Airalo asks $48 for 15 days and $71 for the month.
Ubigi: Cheapest 10 GB, two networks. 10 GB for 30 days at $16 on 2degrees and Spark, with 5G. The only brand here that names two New Zealand networks.
Nomad: Cheapest 3 days and cheapest 20 GB. 3 days of unlimited at $11, 20 GB for 30 days at $28, on Spark.
Holafly: Simplest unlimited. Days, not gigabytes, on Spark. $27.50 for a week; sharing limited to 1 GB a day.
Model: Airalo Buckets or unlimited days; Holafly Unlimited days only; Saily Buckets or unlimited days; Nomad Buckets or unlimited days; Ubigi Buckets, then 2 Mbps; Ringo Light Unlimited trips: 2 weeks or 30 days.
Unlimited, 3 days: Airalo $11.50; Holafly $11.90; Saily No 3-day plan; 5 days $18.99; Nomad $11; Ubigi No 3-day plan; Ringo Light No 3-day plan.
Unlimited, 7 days: Airalo $27; Holafly $27.50; Saily No 7-day plan; 5 days $18.99; Nomad $25; Ubigi 20 GB, then 2 Mbps, $29; Ringo Light No 7-day plan; 2 weeks $20.99.
Unlimited, 2 weeks: Airalo 15 days $48; Holafly 15 days $50.50; Saily No 15-day plan; Nomad No 15-day plan; 10 days $33; Ubigi 15 days, 30 GB, then 2 Mbps, $44; Ringo Light $20.99.
Unlimited, 30 days: Airalo $71; Holafly $73.90; Saily $71.99; Nomad No 30-day unlimited; Ubigi 60 GB, then 2 Mbps, $65; Ringo Light $39.99.
10 GB, 30 days: Airalo $24; Holafly No buckets; Saily $23.99; Nomad $18; Ubigi $16; Ringo Light No buckets; 2 weeks starts with 10 GB, $20.99.
20 GB, 30 days: Airalo $38; Holafly No buckets; Saily $37.99; Nomad $28; Ubigi 25 GB $35; Ringo Light No buckets; 30 days starts with 20 GB, $39.99.
Full speed on unlimited: Airalo 3 GB a day, then 1 Mbps; Holafly No daily cap stated; sharing 1 GB a day; Saily 5 GB a day, then 1 Mbps; Nomad 2 GB a day, then 1 Mbps; Ubigi A fixed amount, then 2 Mbps; Ringo Light No speed cap; starts with 10 or 20 GB, adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged.
Networks: Airalo Spark; Holafly Spark; Saily Not named by Saily; Nomad Spark; Ubigi 2degrees, Spark; Ringo Light Local partner network.
Renews?: Airalo No; Holafly No; Saily No; Nomad No; Ubigi No; Ringo Light No, one payment; the trip ends when it ends.
App needed: Airalo Yes; Holafly For the data balance; Saily Yes; Nomad Optional; Ubigi Optional; Ringo Light No, the eSIM arrives by email.
New Zealand is a long flight for almost everyone, so people stay two or three weeks, often in a campervan. For 15 days of unlimited, Airalo asks $48 and Holafly $50.50; Ubigi asks $44 for 30 GB at full speed. Saily and Nomad sell no 15-day unlimited. For a month, $65 to $73.90. Ringo Light charges $20.99 for 2 weeks and $39.99 for 30 days, one payment each, nothing renews.
Read what unlimited means before you pick. Airalo gives 3 GB a day at full speed, then 1 Mbps. Saily gives 5 GB a day, Nomad 2 GB. Ubigi gives 30 GB for 15 days or 60 GB for the month, then 2 Mbps. Holafly states no daily cap for your own phone and limits sharing to 1 GB a day. Ringo Light has no speed cap: the 2 weeks starts with 10 GB and the 30 days with 20 GB, and when you have used 80% we add 10 GB once and charge the $20.99 top-up. A heavy two weeks with us costs $41.98, still under Ubigi's $44 for 15 days; a heavy month costs $60.98, under every rival for the month.
For a short trip, Ringo Light sells no 3-day or 7-day plan. Nomad sells 3 days of unlimited at $11 and a week at $25. Our 2 weeks at $20.99 costs less than any rival's week, so it is worth a look even for seven days.
New Zealand has three networks: Spark, One NZ and 2degrees. All three cover the cities, the towns and the main state highways well. Between towns, in the national parks and on the alpine passes, there are long stretches with no signal on any network, and no eSIM changes that. Most travel eSIMs here ride Spark; Ubigi is the one brand that also names 2degrees.
The road from Te Anau to Milford Sound has no mobile signal for most of its length, and the same goes for large parts of the West Coast, Arthur's Pass and the tracks in Abel Tasman and Aoraki. Download offline maps for each day's drive before you leave the motel Wi-Fi.
Ubigi, $16 for 10 GB. The cheapest 10 GB here, on 2degrees and Spark with 5G. 25 GB for 30 days at $35.
Nomad, $18 for 10 GB. And the cheapest 20 GB at $28, on Spark.
Saily, $23.99 for 10 GB. 20 GB at $37.99. Its listing is from July; saily.com would not load for us.
Airalo, $24 for 10 GB. Its Nzcom plan, 20 GB for $38, buckets from $4 for 1 GB.
Ringo Light, no buckets. Our 2 weeks starts with 10 GB for $20.99 and our 30 days with 20 GB for $39.99. For 10 GB that lasts a month, Ubigi at $16 or Nomad at $18 is the better buy, and all four rivals sell 20 GB for less than our 30 days. Buy Ringo Light for unlimited, not for a bucket. We would rather you read that here than at checkout.
Ringo Light is our own data eSIM, sold to fund the full Ringo, one plan that works everywhere with your own number ported onto it. For New Zealand it sells two trips, both unlimited data at full speed with no speed cap: 2 weeks at $20.99, starting with 10 GB, and 30 days at $39.99, starting with 20 GB. Each adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged at $20.99. One payment, nothing renews. The eSIM arrives by email in seconds and installs in one scan, no app.
The card to buy it is just below this article.
A few days in Auckland. Nomad unlimited, 3 days, $11. Ringo Light sells no 3 days.
A week or two in a campervan. Ringo Light unlimited, 2 weeks, $20.99, less than any rival charges for one week. Ubigi 15 days at $44 for 30 GB at full speed if you want 2degrees as well as Spark.
Two weeks, light use, budget first. Ubigi 10 GB for 30 days at $16.
A month on a working holiday. Ringo Light unlimited, 30 days, $39.99, starting with 20 GB and adding 10 GB once for $20.99. Nomad 20 GB for $28 if a fixed amount is enough.
You need your own number to keep ringing. None of these travel plans does that. The full Ringo, which Ringo Light funds, ports the number you have.
What to do in New Zealand, and what your phone needs for it. Eight places most first trips include, from Auckland down through the volcanic middle of the North Island to the lakes and fiords of the South, with the one thing your data does for you at each. The towns have good 4G and 5G; the parks and passes between them often have none.
The Auckland waterfront, Auckland. The Sky Tower and the city lit up over the Waitemata Harbour, seen from the wharves or from the ferry to Devonport. Most flights land here, so it is the first and last night of many trips. Auckland's trains, buses and ferries take contactless cards. The AT Mobile app shows the next departure.
Hobbiton Movie Set, Matamata, Waikato. The hillside village of hobbit holes built for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, on a working sheep farm. It is seen only on a guided tour. Tours sell out in summer. Book your slot on your phone and keep the ticket ready for the bus.
Champagne Pool at Wai-O-Tapu, South of Rotorua. A steaming hot spring ringed in orange, the best known sight in a park of craters and coloured pools. About half an hour's drive south of Rotorua. The Lady Knox Geyser is set off each morning at 10.15. Check the park's page on your phone and arrive early.
Emerald Lakes, Tongariro Alpine Crossing, Tongariro National Park. Bright green crater lakes below the Red Crater, the high point of a day walk across an active volcanic plateau. Best in summer and early autumn, with an early start. The weather on the crossing turns fast. Read the mountain forecast on your phone the evening before and again at the shuttle.
Abel Tasman National Park, Near Nelson and Motueka. Golden beaches and bays along a coastal track, reached on foot, by kayak or by water taxi from Kaiteriteri or Marahau. Some inlets can only be crossed near low tide. Look up the tide times before you set out; signal on the track is patchy.
Aoraki Mount Cook from the Hooker Valley, Aoraki Mount Cook National Park. New Zealand's highest mountain at the end of a flat valley walk over swing bridges to a glacier lake. About three hours there and back from the village. Check the weather and the track status on your phone in the village; the mountain is often in cloud by afternoon.
Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown, Otago. A lake town under the Remarkables, the base for jet boats, bungy, ski fields in winter and day trips to Milford Sound. Activities and restaurants fill up in summer. Book the gondola or the Milford trip on your phone the day before.
Milford Sound and Mitre Peak, Fiordland. Cliffs and waterfalls rise straight out of the sea along a fiord you see on a boat cruise. It rains here most days, and the waterfalls are at their best after rain. There is no signal on most of the road in. Download the offline map and your cruise ticket in Te Anau.
We priced Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad, Ubigi and Ringo Light for New Zealand on 28 September 2026, all on the same day, in US dollars. Each rival's price comes from its own website where it showed dollars, otherwise from an esimdb.com listing, and every source and its date is listed below. Ringo Light's prices come from the catalogue our checkout charges.
We compare the trips people actually book: a week, two weeks and a month of unlimited data, and a 10 GB bucket. We read each brand's fair use and speed rules and quote them as the brands state them. We did not run speed tests, so this page makes no speed claims for any brand.
Ringo Light is our own product. We put it in the table on the same terms as everyone else, and where a rival is the better buy the page says so.
Left out: Maya Mobile, we could not read its own prices for this country on the day, so it stays out rather than being guessed.
Source for Airalo: https://www.airalo.com/new-zealand-esim?currency=USD (unlimited in dollars on the site, network Spark; buckets from esimdb.com/new-zealand/airalo, 23 September 2026).
Source for Holafly: https://esim.holafly.com/esim-new-zealand/.
Source for Saily: https://esimdb.com/new-zealand/saily (listing dated 2 July 2026; saily.com refused the fetch).
Source for Nomad: https://esimdb.com/new-zealand/nomad (listing dated 20 September 2026; network from nomadesim.com/new-zealand-esim).
Source for Ubigi: https://esimdb.com/new-zealand/ubigi (listing dated 16 September 2026; networks from cellulardata.ubigi.com/new-zealand).
For two weeks or a month of unlimited data, Ringo Light: $20.99 for 2 weeks and $39.99 for 30 days on 28 September 2026, against $44 for 15 days and $65 for 30 days at Ubigi, the cheapest rival. For 3 days, Nomad at $11. For 10 GB, Ubigi at $16; for 20 GB, Nomad at $28.
Airalo, Holafly and Nomad ride Spark. Ubigi names 2degrees and Spark. Saily does not name its network on its listing. All of them cover the cities and main highways; none reaches the remote passes and fiords.
Every brand has a limit somewhere. Airalo slows you after 3 GB a day, Saily after 5 GB, Nomad after 2 GB, Ubigi after its fixed full-speed amount. Holafly states no daily cap for your own phone. Ringo Light has no speed cap: it starts with 10 or 20 GB and adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged.
Mostly not. There is no mobile signal on most of the road from Te Anau to Milford Sound, on any network. Download an offline map and check the road status in Te Anau before you drive in, especially in winter.
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